


The Food of the Gods (and How It Came to Earth)

by Lamachine



Series: The Wheels of Chance [2]
Category: Sanctuary (TV), Warehouse 13
Genre: Backstory, Gen, slight crossover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-07
Updated: 2013-07-07
Packaged: 2017-12-18 00:27:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/873635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lamachine/pseuds/Lamachine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"That a century later, a young Myka would read those stories and be inspired to live a life of adventures, not unlike your own, never crossed your mind."</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Food of the Gods (and How It Came to Earth)

This tiny bedroom, exiled at the end of the second floor, with its small, round window and its old, squeaking narrow bed, reminds you of the flat where you and Charles lived, back in those years, when everything in London was grey and paved with money and worries and rent.

Charles’ studies were the only thing motivating you then, and so you spent hours every night, in that corner of the living room you had turned into a makeshift lab, reading the books he brought back home, carefully drawing out experiments and keeping records in that little notebook you hid in a cache you had built in the southern wall.

You don’t know why you always loved hiding things as much as you do. It has been a habit ever since you were a child; hiding your favorite toys in the most unusual places, as if your mind couldn’t settle as long as they weren’t put aside, buried. For as long as you can remember, you designed mechanisms and locks to conceal and protect what is yours from an unknown, invisible enemy.

Even now, as you are settling into your new life here, in Univille, you hide everything you write, not out of shame, but because it is yours to keep. Myka called it a compulsion once. It had a name; hoarding. She said yours really wasn’t that bad, that you should see the houses some people have; rooms entirely filled with objects – sometimes even garbage. You don’t believe your inclination is similar, because yours isn’t focused onto the object itself – you simply can’t live without the mystery.

You like that there is something hidden behind everything that seems common and normal around you: in your world, every one of your surroundings holds a cache, a treasure like a double meaning. A hidden depth. Thus you designed secret safes everywhere you could, and although Charles believed that you were a fool to allow such paranoid tendencies to grow, you could see the admiration he felt for you when he found himself unable to solve one of your precious puzzles.

Since you walked out of the Bronzer, every time you can steal a moment alone, away from the usual recklessness of the Warehouse business, you find something incredibly powerful in those memories you secretly cherish. The Regents have a way of making you feel as though you are merely a prisoner, a Victorian woman forever trapped outside of her time – a life suspended, displaced. Here at the Bed & Breakfast, your room, in all its deficiencies, reminds you that there are not many differences between the two worlds you have seen. Often, it seems like only a few years ago, you roamed the streets of London, desperate for any work that would allow you to survive the dull monotony of a common life.

You don’t recall many specific, life-changing moments from those days – but you remember the hunger well. The fight, every night, to find sleep – to lose your mind in sweet unconsciousness as your stomach continued its usual uproar. You remember the constant headache that burdened your every move and still managed to make you feel light-headed. To detach your mind from your bleak present, you had begun writing stories – tales of wonder, a world filled with scientific discoveries that were so beyond anything one would ever imagined, they appeared magical. It lifted your spirits to wander in those narratives, blissfully forgetting about your daily starvation.

It was Charles who first suggested publishing your work, hoping it would serve to ease your financial burden some more. A draper’s assistant didn’t earn much, and the independence you had wished for seemed plagued with uncertainties about your future. You both felt trapped in this new life of yours, incredibly far from the dreams of grandeur you still entertained, albeit more realistically. Some of Charles’ fellow students had connections in the publishing business, and so he felt confident that you both could gain from it – although it came at a price. Clearly, no one could know that you were the writer – the tales had to be from an anonymous source, or else they would never be printed. For weeks, you refused to hear of it – that is, until the day you found out you were pregnant with Christina.

On the following morning, Charles left the apartment with your manuscript and came back with the first of many royalties check. Although the amount of money wasn’t as high as you had expected, it renewed your hope that you both could live the life you had always wanted – as long as you remained together, there was nothing your brother and you couldn’t achieve.

You recall the first time you saw your own words printed in the newspaper. How surprised you were, when you found your own initials at the bottom of the page – H. G. Wells. Charles hadn’t told you that he had asked for the tales to be published under that pen name; to honor an old patriarch from your family, he had explained to the editor. That morning, you held him in your arms and promised him a life of wonder, as you did when you were kids, every time you found him crying because of he wasn’t as tough and masculine as his older brothers.

That a century later, a young Myka would read those stories and be inspired to live a life of adventures, not unlike your own, never crossed your mind. And that Charles would keep writing in your name, all those years after you had disappeared… Really, your brother was fuller of surprises than you ever allowed him to be.

Looking back on those years, you see now the extent of the sacrifices he made to offer you and Christina the stability you needed to pursue the life you dreamed of. How dedicated he had always been to you. You know that Charles would have never been happy, leading an ordinarily life, but maybe he could have found content in it.

There is no purpose in regrets now, as your fingers brush lightly against the golden lettering of your initials on Myka’s hardcover copy of _The Wheels of Chance_. You smile as you imagine sharing the memories of those days with her, when you wrote that novel between ten-hour working days and sleepless nights of trying to get three-months-old Christina to rest.

A draper’s assistant was truly a repetitive job. The first few days, you were impressed with the different textures, colors, sensations it offered, but after a week, your frustrations grew as your aspirations seemed further away than they ever were – you needed to stop wasting your time there. You remember how Charles insisted, back then, that you were acting childish, and that you could not quit, now that you had a new mouth to feed. You knew he had no idea how boredom never was just a feeling to you.

It is, and has always been, a paralyzing state that frightens you out of your mind; it creeps onto you and refuses to leave, crawling down your veins and suffocating your lungs, turning you into something you are not. Something you were never meant to be. Boredom is a prison that starts in this tirelessness in your legs – oh how you wish that you could be seven again, and running through that childhood park you held close to your heart.

You never quite found anything like it, not until you met her; but that came later.

You remember quite clearly the night you first heard her name. Winter had settled in London, and your brother and you could barely find enough heat to take comfort in your new home. The walls of the flat, it seemed, were as thin as a leaf. If the only inconvenience had been the noisy neighboring family, it would have been tolerable; that you had to wrap your daughter inside your coat to protect her from the cold nights: that stung.

That evening, a friend of Charles had come to visit, and brought along with him a few bottles of wine, to celebrate the publication of yet another of his so-called scientific articles. Cherishing the warmth of Christina’s tiny body against yours, as you rocked her to sleep in a corner of the living room, you had retreated yourself from the conversation – despite the fact that it burned your lips to list the many flaws you had found in the paper. For once, though, Helena Wells remained silent as she absently listened to the joyful ideas the boys entertained.

“Haven’t you heard? It’s all over London.”

Charles, easily roped into stories, had naively entertained his guest all night with a hundred questions about the scientific and cultural circles of London. You remember how desperately he wanted to be allowed into the elitist class his friends revolved around, how sadly he clung to the higher steps of the ladder, trying to pull himself up there – and you along with him.

“She is the first female doctor under the laws of our Empire”, the words had left the student’s mouth with a bitter taste, but the accomplishment had triggered your curiosity. Careful not to wake your daughter, you had pulled yourself up the rocking chair, focusing your attention onto the conversation that played out in your living room.

“Who’s she?”, Charles had asked, pouring wine in the empty glasses, inviting his guest’s confidences. Had he noticed your interest, and was it why he was so eager to know more about this woman? You had shared a look then, as you discreetly walked around the room, firmly holding the baby against your chest.

“I hear she is quite a handful too”, your brother’s friend continued, indulging himself in his story. “Made quite a mess of things around Oxford.”

If you close your eyes now, you could see every detail in that flat as if it was only yesterday that you lived there – the mold that grew beside the eastern window; the spider web that only trapped dust; the table in the middle of the living room, covered in borrowed books and empty wine bottles, Christina’s small crib. Yes, if you close your eyes now, you could surely smell the scent of that old couch on which your brother’s friend sat that evening – the humidity that had settled in its coating, the roughness of the fabric.

And there, in the midst of this chaotic poverty, she would appear in your life in the form of a simple, innocent name dropped amongst the drunken tales of a bragging science student.

“They say she does not answer when one calls her Miss. Demands to be called Doctor”, he spoke derisively. “Doctor Helen Magnus. Doesn’t she hear how ridiculous that sounds?”

You thought it sounded magnificent.


End file.
